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All in the Day's Work

This inventive comedy double-bill is more than your average home movie - with its tale of two young pranksters getting their just deserts

Amateur film 1930 10 mins Silent

From the collection of:

Logo for Wessex Film and Sound Archive

Overview

Alistair Sawrey-Cookson's home movie is a comic morality tale for naughty children everywhere. A boy and a girl, who'd rather play, drive their tutor to distraction with pranks involving string and a pillow. The next film shows the boy and girl, joined by two other girls, splashing in a large basin. They play a hose on an older woman who gives each a smack. The kids decide to tamper with the family car. Their Mum can’t start it but says she was actually going to take them for a drive.

When he was eleven Alistair Sawrey-Cookson’s mother gave him a cine camera, which he used to film events and scenarios around Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. While studying at the RADA in London, the Second World War broke out and Alistair went on to serve as an RNVR Lieutenant in the Royal Navy. Always known to have an affinity with the sea and the boats and ships that sailed on it, Alistair, once the war was over, made films on a more professional basis, often with nautical themes. His best known film is ‘The Feathered Wheel’ which features paddle steamers. He also presented a BBC TV children’s programme called Travel Story, in 1953, which was all about a yacht race from Southampton to Cherbourg.